Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

The post-WW2 American-led world order was, at times, a shared world order between the United States and Soviet Union. Free trade, perhaps, was "enforced" by the United States Navy but that was for the benefit of all nations and it seems to me to have been something pretty widely understood.

If the US military fails to keep international waters open, that harms everyone, and everyone more so than the United States. There's this continued misunderstanding that America did this or that, or securing global shipping is for America to do, or what have you. But you can't have your cake and eat it too here. If you accept American hegemony of the seas and the associated benefits, you have to also accept American action in places like Iran. It's a package deal - you get both or neither. There seems to be a misunderstanding about that, I hope it's a little more clear now.

> It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense.

To this second point, the US can just keep the Strait closed. No big deal. It isn't really possible for Iran to forcibly win here because while the US has higher gas prices, we're the #1 oil and gas market and we can stomach the pain much longer less you get complaints from MAGA/far-left anti-American types. Iran would simply watch their entire economy collapse, while Americans are paying a couple bucks more for cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

But the perspective that the US would be defeated is the incorrect one. In fact, what would be defeated here is that very American-led world order. For the US to be defeated here, as so many seem to rejoice at the prospect of, you would also lose American naval power and security, and instead each and every country would have to spend a lot more human capital and treasure to secure their own shipping and trade arrangements, because there would be no America to come help and save the day. No more NATO. No more caring about Taiwan or Ukraine (remember Iran helps Russians kill Ukrainians?) or getting involved in expeditionary affairs. You can not separate these things. Iran happens for the same reason NATO happens. The world will be much more transactional - pay to play and a global American security tax. A scenario like the one in Iran, in which a genocidal dictatorship that is all to happy to steal tribute from weaker nations simply becomes the norm, if not simply more common, and the EU or China or whoever can deal with it.

So I'd say, be careful to join other isolationists and smugly cheer for the US to "lose" to Iran, and in which case you can expect much worse as the US says "forget it" and only seeks to protect its own vital interests without regard to the rest of the world - the Trumpian and far left view which is a marriage of convenience.

Modern US surface warships such as the DDG-52 Arleigh Burke class are pretty survivable. The Iranians (and their Houthi proxies) have made sustained attacks on them and don't seem to have hit anything. And a single hit would be highly unlikely to sink such as vessel: we're not talking about something like the Russian Moskva cruiser that was crewed by drunks and had inoperative defensive systems.

The real problem is that there are too few such vessels to sustain convoy escort operations. Each destroyer can only provide area air defense for a handful of merchant vessels, and they can only stay on station for a few days at a time before they have to cycle out to refuel, rearm, and conduct critical maintenance. Some of the key munitions also appear to running low. And it appears that the other Gulf states are refusing to allow use of their facilities over fears of Iranian retaliation.

Other countries generally aren't really in a position to assist as part of a coalition either. They either don't have sufficiently capable warships at all, or lack the logistics train to sustain them in the Persian Gulf / Gulf of Oman region. After the Cold War a lot of countries like the UK and Germany essentially dismantled their navies so that they now exist only as government jobs programs.

Even if Iran would charge $2 million per ship (like it has done) it would be manageable cost for for shipping companies and would generate same amount of income as Iran's domestic oil production.

When the US violates the law of the sea in the South America, why not. Everybody complains but understands.

If Iran doesn't want to observe the terms of the UNCLOS (regardless of whether they have ratified it or not) then their territorial waters claims revert to the older 3NM limit. They can't have it both ways. Of course, in practice those legalisms don't matter without a means of enforcement.

The horizon at sea level is about 3 miles. The strait of Hormuz is 35+ miles wide. Any mechanism used to get around this would be detectable and could be attacked with relatively inexpensive ordinance.